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Help Us Solve California’s Nitrate Problem
Agriculture was a $54 billion industry in California in 2014, and the numbers have continued to grow each year despite the drought. But that profit comes at a cost and one of those costs is water quality in our farming communities.
Plants need nitrogen to grow, and the advent of chemical fertilizer after World War Two helped generate an explosion in farm output. To maximize yield, farmers add more fertilizer than the plant needs; most of the extra nitrogen not used by the crop leaches into groundwater as nitrate. Unfortunately, nitrate is an acute contaminant that at high levels is especially
Legislative Session 2016: Building Momentum and Making Gains in CT!
Our disconnect with water: Scott Pond and linking individual actions to the health of our waters
Earlier this month, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and Department of Health released an advisory to avoid contact with Scott Pond in Lincoln, Rhode Island due to the presence of blue-green algae in the water.
Not only should adults avoid contact with the water, it said, but so should pets. And children. It also advised against eating any fish taken from the pond. It then proceeded to list off a litany of potential side effects from contact with the algal-tainted waters: irritation of the skin, nose, and eyes, stomachache, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Fun stuff
Drilling Down Into The Health Impacts of Oil and Gas Production: Los Angeles-style
California is the third leading producer of oil in the country and although Kern County produces most of the state's oil, the Los Angeles area is the nation's largest urban oilfield. Oil production facilities are sited immediately next door to homes, schools, and shopping centers. One in three LA County residents live within one mile of an oil-drilling site—a pretty eye-watering statistic—and yet, no government agency or regulatory body has ever carried out a study of the health impacts on the city’s residents.
This was one of the disturbing facts that came up during a panel discussion of the
A River Quest, a Canoe and a Commitment to #MakeGEPay
Follow Joel on Twitter: @joelwool
When Denny Alsop first canoed across Massachusetts in 1988 (see the New York Times) to raise awareness of water pollution and push for environmental progress, he probably did not expect to be making the same trek nearly thirty years later. But General Electric's February statement that it would fight the EPA's proposed cleanup plan for the Housatonic River convinced him that there was need to push hard for true restoration of the waterway still tarnished by toxic PCBs.
Early in 2016, GE announced it would relocate to Boston and receive a whopping public